Podarcis liolepis ( Boulenger, 1905 )

Renoult, Julien P., Geniez, Philippe, Bacquet, Paul, Guillaume, Claude P. & Crochet, Pierre-Andre, 2010, Systematics of the Podarcis hispanicus - complex (Sauria, Lacertidae) II: the valid name of the north-eastern Spanish form, Zootaxa 2500, pp. 58-68 : 64-65

Podarcis liolepis ( Boulenger, 1905)

Lacerta muralis var. liolepis, Boulenger, 1905 , Transactions of the zoological Society of London 17: 363. Name-bearing type: Natural History Museum (London) BMNH 86.12.29.3, an adult male from Valencia, coll. or leg by Prof. E. Boscá, lectotype by present designation (see Fig. 2 A). The list of the known original syntypes is given above. Type locality: Valencia, Spain, by present lectotype designation. Originally “Valencia”, “Foyos” (= Foios) near Valencia, “Sevilla”, and along the road from Valencia to Dehesa de la Albufera, Spain.

Junior synonym

Lacerta muralis var. hesperica, Schreiber, 1912 , Herpetologia europaea. Eine systematische Bearbeitung der Amphibien und Reptilien welche bisher in Europa aufgefunden sind: 943. Name-bearing types: Five syntypes, still extant: Naturhistorisches Museum Wien NMW 16020 and NMW 16021: 1-4, syntypes ( Tiedemann et al. 1994). Type locality: Zaragoza, Spain.

Remarks: 1) This nomen was treated as an infrasubspecific nomen by Mertens and Wermuth (1960) and Salvador (1986), and therefore as not available (“nomen illegitimum”). This is clearly a mistake: Schreiber (1912) described hesperica as a variety of Lacerta muralis (see heading of page 943), treated it as a variety of muralis (see page 410). This is confirmed by the original labels of the hesperica syntypes in Wien, which writes as: “NMW 16020, Lacerta bocagei liolepis Blgr (Lectotypus of L. muralis var. hesperica Schreib. ), Saragossa, Southoff leg, VIII.1912, Coll. Schreiber / NMW 16021:1-4, Lacerta muralis var. hesperica, Saragossa , Spanien, 1915. II.22 E, Coll. Schreiber, Nr. 84,89, leg. Southoff”.

2) Despite the mention on the labels that one of the specimen is a lectotype, neither Tiedemann et al. (1994) nor ourselves were able to find a published lectotype designation for hesperica. The specimens of the original type series thus all remain syntypes.

Proposed status: subjective junior synonym of Podarcis liolepis . This nomen would be available for the northern TYP3 populations (carrying the “ Type 3” mtDNA lineage) if they were recognised as distinct from the southern TYP3 ones (carrying the south-eastern “Valencia” mtDNA lineage).

A series of other nomina apply to various populations of Podarcis liolepis . They are either subjective junior synonyms of liolepis (if Podarcis liolepis is treated as a monotypic species) or valid nomina for subspecies of Podarcis liolepis . As a review of the morphological variation and subspecific systematics of Podarcis liolepis is beyond the scope of this paper, we do not address their status here but will do it in a forthcoming work dedicated to the infraspecific systematics of Podarcis liolepis .

Diagnosis: a member of the Podarcis hispanicus complex characterized by the combination of the following characters: masseteric shield and dark vertebral stripe frequently present but most often discontinuous, dark vertebral stripe never splits near its anterior part, generally lack of yellow coloration on the belly and under tail, pale dorsolateral stripes wider than the dark supradorsolateral stripes except in uniformly coloured individuals. Dorsum generally brown or greyish but often green in some populations from the southernmost parts of the range. Belly and undertail white, salmon-pink or brick red, never yellowish (but females can have yellow under the throat). When present, combination of a dark vertebral stripe and a distinct masseteric shield on one or two sides excludes all other taxa in this complex except P. carbonelli berlengensis and some TYP 1 specimens (in which the dark vertebral stripe would be limited to the anterior part of the back). In addition, TYP1 (both 1A and 1B lineages, see Pinho et al. 2006) differs from P. liolepis by contrastingly white or pale dorsolateral stripes (usually less contrasting in P. l i o l e p i s, rarely white, sometimes absent) which are regularly and strongly dashed in males and some females (less regularly fragmented in P. liolepis ) or continuous in the other females, and narrower than the black supradorsolateral stripes in both sexes (as wide as or wider than the black supradorsolaterals in P. liolepis ). Those P. liolepis specimens that lack a dark vertebral stripe need to be separated from the other taxa by additional characters. TYP2 (which never shows a dark vertebral stripe) also differs from liolepis by the presence of a yellowish coloration on the rear belly and under tail and by wider dark supradorsolateral stripes (which are usually made of scattered marbling in males, more continuous in females) and the typically green or greenish coloration of the dorsum of males in spring. Specimens of P. hispanicus sensu stricto lacking a split dark vertebral stripe can be distinguished from small, flattened P. liolepis lacking temporal shields by the yellowish coloration on the undertail present in most P. hispanicus sensu stricto, by their different head shape with more flattened head and more pointed snout and their paler iris. Iberian populations of P. vaucheri (which rarely shows a dark vertebral stripe) often have a yellow or yellowish belly and dark supradorsolateral stripes that are usually either absent or wider than the pale dorsolateral stripes. P. bocagei has a blunt, rounder snout and a green dorsum contrasting with brown flanks (males in spring). P. carbonelli has a deeper head and more pointed snout and green flanks (often contrasting with brown dorsum) in males in spring. These last two taxa also lack a dark vertebral stripe in most specimens.

Generally, we wish to insist on the difficulty to identify many isolated specimens of the Podarcis hispanicus complex on their phenotypic characters only.

Distribution: eastern and northern Spain and parts of southern France ( Fig. 4).

Figures

FIGURE 2. Latero-dorsal views of Podarcis liolepis (Boulenger, 1905). A. Specimen BMNH 86.12.29.3, lectotype of Lacerta muralis var. liolepis Boulenger, 1905, Valencia, Spain. Photo C. McCarthy. B. Specimen BEV 9853 with “ Valencia ” mitochondrial lineage (mtDNA), male, collected in Rafelbuñol, north of Valencia, Spain. Photo PGe. C. Specimen BEV 9815 with “ Type 3 ” mtDNA, male, collected 3 km NW of Miami-Platja along the national road 340, province Tarragone, Spain. Photo PAC. Note the great morphological resemblance of both Podarcis liolepis (BEV 9853 and BEV 9815) showing however a deep mitochondrial divergence